Have you ever seen the film Dirty Harry? One person sure has: Alan Spencer, creator of Sledge Hammer!
This sitcom is meant as an over-the-top parody of that film. Spencer had been inspired by another television program growing up: Get Smart, which had revolutionized the way we look at the spy genre. So too did Spencer feel the need to revamp the ‘cop’ genre, adding to it a nihilistic attitude, and one of disregard for the law in order to carry out law enforcement. It looked at gratuitous violence and satirized it. Unfortunately, many viewers did not see the satire within the show and therefore did not enjoy mass appeal.

Fish has spent six years in jail. Six years alone. Six years keeping his mouth shut about the robbery, about the other men involved. The night he is released, the four men he protected with silence celebrate his freedom with a congratulatory dinner. The meal is a lavish array of sushi, served off the naked body of a beautiful young woman. The sushi girl seems catatonic, trained to ignore everything in the room, even if things become dangerous. Sure enough, the four unwieldy thieves can’t help but open old wounds in an attempt to find their missing loot